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national system of agriculture, a ground of constant reliance 

 in the most profitable and productive farming ; in short, 

 that they represent the farming of farmers. The people of 

 England depend upon them for that necessary surplus of food 

 which it is the business of fiirmers to raise for the sustenance 

 of the great mass of the population engaged in other employ- 

 ments. The uncounteracted effect of the sudden extinction of 

 these new resources of agriculture where they are relied upon, 

 might reasonably be expected to produce bankruptcy, fam- 

 ine, and even social revolution. The general principles, 

 however, of such farming must be applicable here. The ap- 

 plication of these principles in immediate proximity to the 

 demand furnished by a populous manufacturing state, and 

 the increased productiveness that would result, could not but 

 greatly enlarge the farmer's revenues. The increasing bur- 

 dens of taxation, nothing when compared with the salva- 

 tion of the government for which they are sustained, insigni- 

 ficant when compared with the burdens of other civilized 

 states, are still an incentive to a higher culture. The growing 

 cheapness of railroad transportation deepens the need to our 

 fiirmers of reinforced energies to enable them to maintain their 

 hold upon their own markets, against the products of the 

 newly-broken soils both of the East and the West. 



Schools, colleges, and institutes have been among the most 

 important and useful agencies of agricultural progress abroad. 

 The experiment has been tried with success. The measure of 

 American enterprise in its boldness and originality might al- 

 most be expressed by the phrase — What has not been done, 

 can be done. Surely, no one will suggest that Massachusetts, 

 in the important matter of agricultural education, is to fall be- 

 low the standard of the familiar teaching, that what has been 

 done can be done again. The Commonwealth has accepted the 

 bounty of the nation and the trust which it imposes. She has 

 undertaken and bound herself to provide for her young men 

 an institution at which they can be instructed in the principles 

 and economy of agriculture. It is no longer a question whether 



